


The name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

by oddegg



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, POV Third Person, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddegg/pseuds/oddegg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the 1stclass-kink meme: The first time Charles purposefully manipulated another's mind, he made his mother love him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

You are small and the world is a large, shadowed, confusing place; full of bright enticements just out of your reach and large beings who make sounds you do not understand but which you have learnt mean _‘no’_ and _‘you cannot’_.

The brightest temptation is the golden one. The one who lures you in with the shine of them; with their heavy-sweet smell and their thin, clear sounds and who you know is yours – yours always – but who always slips away from you even as you reach for them.

You open your mouth and wail out your need for them to the world and the bright one makes a noise which you are too small to understand but which you know means exile from them.

 _“Christ! Can someone **please** take him away somewhere?”_

* * *

You are four and you are old enough to count the years of your life out on small, chubby fingers and clever enough to notice that the other people in this large, empty place you live in do not hear the same echoes in it that you do. Do not notice the murmurs of sound just on the edge of hearing that trail behind the maids and the servants, that rise to a crashing wave of noise above the parties held downstairs that you watch in secret through the banisters.

You try to speak about it; to explain about the pull and excitement of it, how much it calls to you but there are more things than echoes in this house which aren’t heard.

 _“Oh, Charles… Don’t talk such stupid nonsense. Go play somewhere else.”_

* * *

You are six and you are holding an old, leather bound book of fairy stories; wonderful tales filled with princes and princesses and magic and families and hope. You slide past the door into her drawing room, silent as Peter’s shadow was in that other book.

She is sitting at her dressing table, blowing on her nails and idly turning the pages of a magazine. The air carries the scent of the flowers of her perfume and the almond tang of the bright bottles of polish lined up by the mirror and you breathe it in with furtive hunger. You creep up to her and ask if she will read to you and if you ask very quietly, quiet like a mouse then maybe you can slip by the hard shine of her outline and into her notice.

She doesn’t look up from her magazine and you can feel the stinging, wasp-buzz of her irritation with you. _“Can’t you see I’m busy, Charles? Go ask Nanny to read to you.”_ And underneath is _‘goawaygoawaystupidannoyingstupidworthless’._

You steal away as quietly as you came and you go down to the library and curl up in a corner and open your book. You are six and it has been two years since you taught yourself to read.

* * *

You are eight and a boy from your prep school has invited you back to his home for the weekend. He is the first person you have ever been able to think of, tentatively, as a friend.

He lives in a much smaller house than you do and his bedroom is _messy_ and there is _clutter_ and _dust_ in the living room that he takes you down to. The toy soldier army he sets up for you both is sprawling; unthinkingly arrogant in the space it takes up in the room and when the door opens an hour or so after you started playing you shoot upright onto your knees, heart tripping in your chest and shoulders already pulling in against the expected scolding.

But the soft edged woman who comes in just laughs and says _“Oh dear, I seem to have interrupted an epic battle! Tea time in ten minutes, Major General sah!”_

She swoops down and kisses your schoolmate on the cheek and he splutters and wipes his face and groans _“Muuum!”_ but you can feel the thrum of _‘warmthcomforthappiness’_ beating through him and her low chuckle as she leaves is underscored with _‘minemyheartmydearlovelovelove’_. Something twists inside your chest and you put your fingers to your suddenly aching head.

You are eight and you ignore the baffled boy you could have called ‘friend’ at school till he turns away from you in retaliation. You never accept another weekend invitation and you never again have to watch things you cannot be a part of or feel the alien brush of affection on your loveless cheek.

* * *

You are ten and you cannot stand it.

You are ten and you didn’t know it would be like this.

You are ten and your mother leans eagerly forward in her chair and says encouragingly _“Yes? Go on, darling. Tell me more about your day, I do love hearing about it!”_ and you see the flat blankness in her eyes – eyes that are turned to look at you finally, _finally_ but which don’t see – they don’t see and they never will, not like you want them to and she says again in exactly the same tone as before _“Yes? Go on, darling.”_ and the rushing words of regret in your throat are choking you.

You are ten and you gave into temptation and reached and _pulled_ the shine of her toward you but you didn’t know, you didn’t understand and you don’t want it.

Not like this. _Not like this._

* * *

You are twelve and you are creeping through the dark hallways of your house armed with a baseball bat, heading toward the whisper of sound that woke you up from sleep and called you from across the emptiness.

You are standing in the kitchen, tiles hard and cold against your feet and your voice is rising with anger at this person trying to trick you, manipulating your mother’s face into an impossible mask of love.

You are standing in the brightly lit kitchen and gazing in awe and a desperate hope at the creature out of a fairy tale stood before you; feeling the throb of _‘likemelikeme’_ and _‘notalonenotalone’_ so strong in the air that you don’t know if it’s coming from this girl or yourself and not caring, promising her the world if she will stay with you.

You are twelve and you are pulling your new friend by the hand through your home and laughing. You are sending your power up and out, deeper into the house till you get to the right room, the right mind and you reach out and twist and pull and this time…

This time your mother will be giving you someone who loves you back.


End file.
